


Seventeen

by etc_kid, mariadperiad20



Series: Chat Fics with Spiders [3]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-12-26 21:51:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18290933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etc_kid/pseuds/etc_kid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariadperiad20/pseuds/mariadperiad20
Summary: Peter coughs and his eyes are foggy and distant. "Hey, none of that now, you here?" Noir says, a hand on Peter's cheek, patting it softly trying to get him to focus and stay awake."Peter, please, focus on me.” And Peter looks at him, all delirious and confused and he gives his little quirked smile, the one that had noirs stomach in knots and heart pounding when they first met"I thought you...left..me," he wheezes, his words rattling and wet and cloying. "I don't want to...leave ...you like.. that"And Noir shakes his head. "You're not leaving Peter, okay? I'm back. Fuck. I'm back. I fucked up Peter, real bad. But we'll get this squared away and things'll be jake and you'll be okay . We can retire. Can just sit around doin borin everyday joe things. Get all old and fat and become curmudgeons." Peter laughs and hacks---Noir is dead and Peter does not want to live.Noir is alive and he's killing Peter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Maria is brilliant and Kat is our ever supportive friend, thanks for letting us go bat shit, Kat.

M: What if Noir and PB are established dating and like... Noir goes missing. He's actually just like undercover or whatever but then when he comes back PB is freaking out. "I thought you were dead, why didn't you tell me", The works

R: Hey ok so established dating. Things get dicey noir has to make a decision. Disappear. Don't tell Peter. Don't let him know. Don't make him liable. Or. Be selfish. Stay. Stay with peter. Put him in danger. Of course he would pick the former

M: djcfrvgt exactly

R: So Peter Benjamin "dies.” He's gone, and Peter B Parker is alone again

M: See this is what happens when we haeve the brain cell

R: No Noir, just him. And God, he's a mess, a fucking wreck. He already mourned his loss of marriage. Imagine him losing Noir, his best friend, his partner in crime fighting, his boyfriend, his love, his life. He sinks and boy does B sink hard

M: PB goes off the deep end

R: And Noir wants to come back he wants to fix this, wants to save PB but he can't, not until he stops what's putting PB in danger. But he starts to realize he's the one putting PB in danger. He's the one making him spiral and act out, and lash out, and not smile, and not sleep, and not shower, or eat, or anything

M: PB is taking more risks. Going into fights without taking precautions, letting his mask get damaged, letting hits land, not bothering to duck from them because why should he? And every time PB goes out to stop a fight it's with the twisted hope that maybe this time the bad guy will win. Maybe this time. He doesn't have the courage to take himself out, no, he doesn't want to do it himself. Despite it all, he still has the faith that G-d is out there, watching. So, he'll keep shoving his life into the bad guys' hands, hoping that they'll off him instead, so he doesn't have to deal with the guilt of doing it himself. First, PB stops going to the interdimensional meetups. He can't go, not when Noir would be so clearly missing. Then, when they come to him, worried, concerned, PB snaps at them, tells them to leave him alone, that he doesn't want to see them again. He can't stand to see their faces, full of sadness and pity. He makes Peni cry, that day. They don't visit him after that, but Gwen still sends him an invite every week to hang out. Peter deletes every one of them

R: Miles is the most persistent. He won't leave him alone. He will call, he will text, he'll send little notes through the fuckin portal and it drives pb up the wall. He knows he should love it. Should love that miles cares, that the kid sends drawings and updates of his life, of sunflower petals and reminders that "they're all there for him." But he hates it. He doesn't want them to care. Doesn't want them to keep trying to reel him back and pull his head above water. Peter B wants to stop almost drowning and floundering at the surface and to sink down. He wants to go where Noir is, but he can't 

R: Not with his cowardice and now with the others doing this. With Miles and Gwen trying and with his guilt about making Peni sob bc Noir was her family to. So, PB does what PB does best, he wallows. Drunk as fuck and almost never sober. He doesn't shave, doesn't shower, doesn’t sleep. When he's not getting his ass handed to him he's drinking and watching those nature docs about the animals and he nearly threw his remote through the screen when he learned some animals died of broken hearts when their soulmates die

R: So, how does Noir finally come back home? Sorry not home. Back to the house. 

M: Because it's not his home anymore

R: Bc home is where you're safe and welcome, and oh boy is he not going to be welcomed back so easy

M: After Peter gets hammered by Lizard, and crawls his way home, broken, bloody. He drags himself across the carpet, leaving a trail of red. He knows he is going to die, here. Finally. He should feel something, but his legs are numb and he can't really see anything because of all the spots.He flops over onto his back, feeling his breathing become wetter and wetter as blood seeps into his lungs. He coughs, once, and then he can't stop coughing and blood is spilling from his lips. Peter feels himself being moved, sending the spots bouncing across his vision. He's propped up, and he can breathe again and god it hurts. Dark hands are touching his throat, checking, and, Peter recognizes them.  
Noir. So he had finally died after all.  
"Noir... I... I'm so glad I'm with you, here. I was afraid that... we would go to different places."  
(Broken back Peter i will die on this hill) Noir was pale, much paler than he had been before. Peter wondered if that was what G-d made angels look like. But, if this was heaven, why did Peter still feel so much pain? Why was he still bleeding? And why did Noir look so, so sad?

R: "Peter, what the fuck," Noir is touching his pulse, hands going to to Peter's chest and ripping open his costume. PB's chest is mottled with bruises and his ribs are in a way that uas Noir's stomach doing loops and knots. Peter looks like he's on his way to a chicago overcoat and Noir feels terror in his veins

M: Peter just blinks down at his chest. "I thought it wouldn't hurt, when I'm dead. But I guess it still does?" He looked up at Noir, concern slipping across his otherwise overly relaxed features. "You don't hurt still, do you? From where you died?"

R: Noir shakes his head. "Peter, Peter we're alive," he says, trying to think of someway to get him to a hospital. Peter's breathing is wet and gargled, teeth pink from blood and spit and he wants to turn him on his side, let him spit the blood out so he doesn't choke on it but Peter is hurt and if he shifts him, hurts his ribs or spine any more he could kill him. But isn't that basically what he did anyways? Noir left to try and save Peter, to put him out of harm's way. But instead he just presented peter to death on a silver platter  
"Peter, please," he says, hands on Peter's face. Not gloved, just warm skin. "We gotta get you to a hospital now. I gotta call the meat wagon- er- ambulance."

M: hohhhhhhhh my god that line  
Peter's eyebrows furrowed, his hand reaching up to clumsily grasp at Noir's hand. "Wh-" He tried to speak, but broke off, coughing hard, as more blood splattered onto the red-soaked carpet. Noir grimaced, before decisively turning Peter to his side, trying his best to ignore the cry of pain as he did so, trying to ignore the way Peter's grip was limp in his hand. Noir knew where the phone was, of course, still in the same place as always on the wall, but now those few yards seemed much to far away.  
Huh. He had left Peter for months but now he suddenly couldn't leave his side to save his life. How pathetic could one man be?

R: Hes rubbing Peter's back as he coughs and hacks blood out onto the carpet. He shakes as he spits it up, and Noir thumbs away the drops of blood from the corners of Peter's mouth  
This was all his fault. He did this to Peter, he was killing him. Killing Peter and he would die and Peter's blood would be on Noir’s hands, literally and metaphorically. The detectives gone through a lot in his life but he doesnt think hes ever been more scared. He never wanted to be a spider. Never asked for this. If he just hasn't been turned, if he had met peter under different circumstances, a different life, maybe this would never have happened and they could grow old together. Be happy  
"That's not the life i gave you" the spider god says in his head. "I told you I would give you a fate far worse than death little man. This is why you tremble so"

M: spider god seriously

R: Lol remembering her is wild

M: Noir hesitates, before standing up and practically sprinting across the room, ripping the phone off of its rest, before dashing back to Peter's side even as he hits the numbers. In those few seconds, Peter is shaking, coughing, one hand feebly reaching out towards where Noir had moved, fingers clawing into the carpet as if he could pull himself to wherever Noir went.  
When Noir knelt back down next to Peter, line ringing in his ear, Peter scrabbled at Noir's coat, clutching at the end of it with his weak grip, as if that would stop Noir from leaving him. Then the line picks up and Noir can't remember what he says but then Peter is coughing and he drops the phone and he's holding Peter still as he coughs so his ribs don't move too much, and all he can think is have them come quickly, and, this wasn't supposed to happen.

R: Peters choking on his own blood and noirs got a handkerchief out, pressing it up against his mouth as he has peter in recovery position, blood soaking into the white fabric and his heart lurches. It never was supposed to be like this  
Peter coughs and his eyes are foggy and distant. "Hey, none of that now, you here?" Noir says, a hand on Peter's cheek, patting it softly trying to get him to focus and stay awake."Peter, please, focus on me.” And Peter looks at him, all delirious and confused and he gives his little quirked smile, the one that had noirs stomach in knots and heart pounding when they first met  
"I thought you...left..me," he wheezes, his words rattling and wet and cloying. "I don't want to...leave ...you like.. that"  
And Noir shakes his head. "You're not leaving Peter, okay? I'm back. Fuck. Im back. I fucked up Peter, real bad. But we'll get this squared away and things'll be jake and you'll be okay . We can retire. Can just sit around doin borin everyday joe things. Get all old and fat and become curmudgeons." Peter laughs and hacks

M: Noir's heart just twists because of course in the middle of Peter's suffering he'd be worried about how he'd feel. Worried about his suffering.  
Peter is laughing, but he can't breathe and Noir has to hold him still as he devolves into coughing that shakes his entire body, barely able to gasp in a breath before it's punched out of him in another coughing fit. Noir nearly sobs in relief when he hears the sound of sirens approaching, giving Peter's chest a gentle rub as his coughing dies down for a moment.  
"We'll get you safe, Peter. You'll be okay soon."  
Peter is still staring up at him with wide, fuzzy eyes, and Noir tries to force himself to smile. Tries to make himself look anything other than desperate because he knows that Peter could die right now and he wants him to feel happy in his last moments, not confused and afraid and hurting.There is pounding on the door, and Peter tries to move his eyes towards it, but Noir guides his head back to the position for optimal recovery. Peter's eyes are fixed on him, full of fear because something is wrong here, and Noir tries to twitch his lips up but instead he starts crying.  
Peter reaches up with the hand that was holding the coat, and wipes at Noir's face, leaving a streak of blood across his cheek. "No... crying... allowed." He chokes out.

R: Peter is too kind. Too fucking kind despite all the shit that he has gone through, that Noir has put him through. He was too fucking kind and it isn't what Noir deserves and he already can imagine it. Him a few months from now, body bleeding and bruised and drunk out of his mind and Peni trying to get ahold of him as he makes the kids cry when he starts screaming and yelling. He can already tell he will spiral harder and faster than even Peter did and Peter is a kind man and a braver one than Noir will ever be  
So he just tries to choke back a sob, tries to keep contact on Peter's face as long as he can before the paramedics are dragging them away and after so long. Apart just a few feet is worse than the worlds they spent apart. And he watches as they try and get him to speak, how they chatter about the blood pooling in his throat and how he wont last long with lungs like that.  
And Noir watches as they try and drag him away, rushing the stretcher and he is trying to follow, trying to not let Peter away from his side ever again bc look where that got him but  
The paramedics are holding him back and he realizes he's yelling and crying because that's peter thats his Peter that is dying. He promises himself every villain thats touched peter in the past fes months is going to be filled with daylight

M: So, Noir goes. As the ambulance leaves, taking Peter off somewhere to try to save him, Noir goes off to avenge him. He can't save Peter, he can't bring Peter out of wherever he goes, he can't change the look of terror on Peter's face as the doors close between them, leaving him trapped inside and Noir all alone outside.  
Noir breaks through the Lizard's lab, and just starts... attacking. Hitting, punching, shooting, until the Lizard is nothing but a mass of flesh and blood and bone on the floor. Noir is pretty sure he killed him, but shoots him twice more in the head just to be sure.  
Noir breaks down the doors (and ceilings, and walls) of every bad guy he can think of, and pummeling them as hard as he can, as viciously as he can. He'd been watching Peter, here and there, keeping tabs on him, and knew exactly who had done what where. So, he returned the favor.  
Sandman, Noir broke his left arm and shattered his shoulder blade. Chameleon, Noir punched until he heard bones crack and then punched some more. Doc Oc he choked half to death with one of his own arms, and broke every bone of his foot.Okay, so maybe Noir broke a few more bones than Peter had had, but they deserved it. Each of them, all of them, deserved it. For daring to hurt Peter.

R: Been thinking about blood covered Noir swooping into Peter's hospital room through the window and he looks like such a fucking avenging angel

M: This black and white man covered in red blood

M: Now, noir covered in peter's red blood…  
Noir's coat had splotches of red splattered across it, a bloody handprint clutched at the hem. Flecks of red across his face, standing out against the monochrome gray. Too bright, too much color. It made the red look redder, and the gray look duller.  
At first glance, one would think he was wearing red gloves. But no, upon closer inspection, anyone could tell that gloves aren't supposed to cake like that, weren't supposed to darken to a coppery brown and flake off, weren't supposed to bunch up under fingernails and cake up wrists. Gloves weren't supposed to drip, either.  
Some of the blood, no, most of the blood, was Peter's. But here and there, a blot of fresh red, bright and dripping, where Noir had gotten the blood of Peter's enemies on him. Noir was furious with himself for those blotches. Their blood did not deserve to touch Peter's. They did not deserve to revel in his pain. Noir should not have let their blood on him.  
Noir's shoes left what would have been muddy footprints, if mud smelled like metal and left a red stain behind. The footsteps tracked across the carpet of Peter's apartment, across the roofs of buildings, on the ground and along the walls, before vanishing after a few paces, reappearing a block or two later. Everywhere Noir went, the scent of blood followed. A gray man leaving behind a trail of red.

R: Noir enters the room, it’s dark and dim and the only real lights are the luminescence from the machines peter is hooked up to. So many machines and Noir could not name them. One read heart monitor, he watched the rise and fall of Peter's pulse. Slow and steady but there.  
He had an iv in his arm and a mask over his mouth helping him breathe. Bandages covered his torso and he hated seeing what they had to do to combat what he could only guess was collapsed lungs and broken ribs  
Blood collected from Peter's chest cavity through a tube and a bag, the bag too full, too weighed down and heavy with peters blood as it tried to invade and drown his lungs  
Peter isn't a particularly large man, but not a small one either. He looks so small and pale against the white sheets of the hospital bed, the dark brown hair a shock of color against the white. He looks down at himself, the red against black and he thinks about how opposites they were. He takes the jacket off and hangs it on the open windowsill ready to take of

M: Noir stays there, listening to the sounds of the machines. They're rhythmic, almost soothing, if only insofar as that Noir knows, so long as they sound like this, it means Peter is still alive. He's not sure how long he sits there, staring at Peter's bloodless face. At some point, he realizes that he's shaking.  
Huh. He doesn't know how to stop.

R: He’s shaking so hard he can feel his bones ache and he has his nails gripping his arms and digging into his skin and he's breathing hard  
And maybe  
This is penance  
Maybe he's feeling the pain Peter is feeling  
Maybe this is just some of what Peter feels and if so he deserves to feel the pain, not Peter 

M: Noir tries to breathe, but his lungs refuse to work and Noir can't help but think of how Peter coughed up all that blood. How Peter felt, drowning in air he couldn't breathe.  
And Noir finds that he can't breathe, either  
His nails are drawing blood, probably, adding traces of black to the mixes of red on his hands and under his fingernails. He doesn't mean to do it, but he can't make himself let go.  
He doesn't want to let go, either.  
He wants to feel this pain. Wants to suffer. He had hurt Peter, made Peter hurt himself. Made Peter cry.  
Noir would to rip his flesh off piece by piece, if only to lessen Peter's pain by an increment

R: But he can't be selfish right now. He already was. He thought what he was doing was what was right, but it wasn't. Not when it results like this. He was selfish. All his decisions were selfish. He could hurt later, punish himself later. But not now. He cant when Peter needs him here and whole and put together. So he sits, and he shakes, and sobs. And he wipes at his face and he listens to the machines and the tick of the clock as it counts by the hours until Peter wakes up

M: Noir is so focused on waiting for Peter to move, to wake up, that his entire focus directs solely onto Peter. He is so ready, so focused, that when Peter does move it surprises him.  
The beeping changes a little, before spiking dramatically as Peter feels the tubes down his throat and in his lungs, feels the blood caked on the inside of his organs because he's Spiderman, god damn it, and the medicine they gave him does absolutely nothing to stop this pain.  
So he was in hell, after all. Or, worse yet, he realizes as the crazed beeping beats itself against his brain, alive.

R: Noir is alert at an instant. He was already so close to peter, sitting with his knees right up against the bed frame, so when Peter wakes his knees clank against it and it keeps him from springing up and startling Peter. He lets him breathe, lets him get oriented as he blinks and looks around and trying to move his hands and head. He turns his sleepy, disoriented eyes towards Noir and Noir is so close to holding his hand but he doesn't want to frighten or overwhelm him. So he swallows, looking at Peter and he doesn't know what to do  
So he grabs his mask, and pulls it up, black mask falling into his lap and Peter Benjamin is there. Not just Noir. Peter Benjamin

M: Peter can't speak. The mask is pinned across the lower half of his face, tubes stretching through his body. Silently, shakily, slowly, Peter reaches out, as if afraid if he moved too quickly Noir would vanish. His fingers brush against the side of Noir's face, and Peter's eyes go from bewilderment to some, some other emotion Noir can't pinpoint. His hand trembles harder, and he presses the palm of his hand into the side of Noir's face, too-cold hands stealing the warmth from his skin.  
Noir reaches up, taking Peter's hand in his own, and kisses the back of it gently, reverently.  
"I am so, so sorry, Peter."  
Peter's eyes shutter, and any emotion we was showing instantly vanished. He pulls his hand out of Noir's grip, and Noir lets him, tracking its path as it balls up into the sheets at Peter's side.

R: Peter doesn't want to touch him, not right now. He touched because he was frightened and weak and hurt and Noir, Noir was alive. And he was warm and soft and he was tangible, not just a figment of his alcohol induced hallucinations again.  
It was Noir. Noir was alive..Noir had left.  
So Peter pulls away and his breathing is shaky and Noir glances at his heart rate on the screen as it increases slightly, just a jump as Peter thinks. Noir lets him shake and think. It's the least he could do. He owed it to Peter after all. He almost killed him, he wouldn't want Peter to sully himself on his would be murderer anyways. He was glad he came back in time to "save" Peter. But still. Maybe coming back was wrong too. Everything was wrong

M: Noir couldn't leave Peter to die, that much was clear. But he should've left once he saw he was alive, shouldn't have waited until Peter woke up.  
Noir should've stayed dead.  
Was it too late to leave? Maybe Noir could vanish again, and Peter would think it was all a pain-induced haze?  
No. No, Noir knew better than that. He knew that Peter would remember him. Hell, he had done it on purpose that way, right? To re-insert himself back into Peter's life like the selfish bastard he was. No, Noir decided as he watched Peter's eyes shift back and forth from himself to Noir, he had found a way to hurt Peter one more time.  
Had found a way to break him even more. Noir hadn't thought he could hate himself any more than he did in this moment, but that was before Peter finally actually, truly reacted to him being there.

R: Noir is quiet, does he even deserve to speak? He lets the words roll around his mouth, trapped behind his closed lips and teeth. Should be tender? Should he be blunt? He feels uncomfortable, he isn't good with these things, words. Feelings, emotions. Noir learned a long time ago how to deal with pain and anger and violence. But he never had much of a defense or offense for tenderness. So he doesn't know what to do, what to say. So he sighs, and opens his mouth. "Peter...I..."

M: Peter shakes his head sharply, eyes flinching closed as the motion pulls on each and every piece of medical equipment strapped in and to his body. Noir snapped his mouth closed, feeling his teeth clack against one another from the force. He didn't want to hurt Peter again.  
Peter reaches up, hand going towards his oxygen mask and Noir almost moves forward, almost stops him. Fear rising in his throat, terrified that Peter will hurt himself, but then the hand keeps moving, and it's moving past Peter's face and it is pointed towards the window, still slightly ajar from Noir's entry. Noir frowns, confused.  
"You want me to close it?"  
Peter shook his head, more slightly this time.  
"Open it?" Noir felt something icey wrap its way around his chest, squeezing tighter with every, slightly increasing, heartbeat.  
Peter pointed harder, sweat popping up on his forehead from the exertion of keeping his arm elevated for even these few moments. Noir had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly what Peter wanted him to do, but he was terrified to ask. But he couldn't be selfish. Not now.  
"You... you want me to leave?" Even as Noir asked the question, he felt the ice tighten until he swore his heart wasn't beating at all, just suspended in time, waiting for Peter's answer.  
Peter dropped his arm, and, without looking at Noir, eyes staring off to the side, he nodded.  
The ice crushed inwards, slicing through and digging its cold points in, ripping and tearing at Noir's heart, shattering.

R: He swallows and nods. There it was. "Okay, Peter," he says. Noir grabs his gloves off the chair, his hat shoved in a pocket, his bloodied coat thrown back over his shoulders. He crouches in the windowsill, gripping the wall and the window frame.  
He didn't want to go. He was being selfish again. He had been selfish originally, leaving instead of fighting alongside Peter, he thought he was doing what was right.  
Then Peter started getting reckless, started hitting himself in fights and losing and he hardly could stay sober for a day. He isolated himself and cried all the time and lost weight and just a few hours ago Noir had cradled him in a pool of his own blood and listened to his breathe shake and wheeze with the rattling of bones in his chest  
Peter wanted him to leave. And he was at least not selfish enough to follow that request. But he looked back at Peter, grey eyes watching the other man. Peter turning his gaze away, so small and frail and angry and Noir nods  
"Alright Peter." Goodbye. He slips his mask back on and jumps. He falls before flinging a web up and swinging out of sight

M: Peter rests his head back, listening to hear the faint sounds of Noir leaving. The soft closing of the window, the sound of a web thwipping that he knew by memory. The minute he knows Noir is gone, he breaks. Peter felt his eyes fill with traitorous tears, slipping down the sides of his face, trying to blink them back but failing to do so. He tried to take a calming breath, but of course he couldn't breathe, oxygen was being forced into his lungs against his will.  
Peter was alone. He was alone and he was virtually strapped to the bed with all of the wires and cords and tubes and monitors attached to him. He couldn't escape, hell, he couldn't even stand up.  
And he was alone.  
Noir was alive. Noir was alive and he had made him leave.

M: Noir was alive. He was alive, and had been following him. Peter knew, he knew what that meant. Noir had been watching him, watching him let himself get taken down fight after fight. Seeing as Peter fell down and didn't get back up again. Seeing how Peter would limp home after a fight and not bother to bandage anything because he was just going to get injured again, how he didn't take so much as an advil because he wanted the pain, wanted every moment to have as much suffering on the outside as it did on the inside.  
Of course, it was never enough.  
Noir must have seen how Peter's windows were always webbed closed, because Peter would sit and drink and drink until jumping out that window without the suit on and letting himself fall would be a good idea. Peter hadn't webbed the window shut because he didn't want to die, at least not entirely, it was also because he knew it wasn't high enough up to work.  
Peter felt his throat constrict as more tears welled in his eyes, but that was a bad idea as it tightened around the oxygen tube. His spidey sense suddenly decided to start letting him know that having a chunk of plastic in his neck was a bad thing, get it out know. His hands spasmed up to his mouth, feeling the hard plastic that covered his face. He couldn't get it off. The beeping in the room increased, his heart rate spiking as his adrenaline kicked into overdrive.

R:Peter wants it out now. He tries to grab and to pull, wants it out, trying to yank the tape keeping it lodged into his mouth off. He doesn't get far in his endeavor though, the beeping alerted a nurse who in turn alerted a doctor and orderly. Peter suddenly finds himself surrounded by people trying to pull his hands away from his face and pin his arms down. His heart is pounding and he feels like screaming and if he weren't so injured his spidey strength would have them flying across the room. He barely hears over the pounding in his ears the doctor telling him he's administering a sedative before Peter's world begins to fade. He gets heavy, so heavy, and tired, so tired  
His fighting stops  
He stops struggling  
His eyelids get heavy  
He barely even registers the hands readjusting the tube and brushing the hair from his face before he's asleep again


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospital release and some tension

M: The next time Peter wakes up, his wrists are pinned to the sides of the bed. A nurse is fiddling with something, their back turned. Peter tries to speak, but notices the mask is still over his face. The tube, though, is gone.

Peter realizes... he's breathing. Never before had oxygen felt so good in his life. He took a moment, eyes closed, just breathing in and out. Feeling. It still hurt like hell, that was for sure, but at least now it wasn't being shoved in and out of him like clockwork.

He was still beladen with all kinds of medical items, but he was able to recognize some of the things that were absent.

The bag filled with blood from his lungs had been removed, although Peter could feel something still lodged into his side, between two of his ribs, most likely the access point. The machine that had been dripping what was most likely medication had been switched out, there was a different one now. It was, Peter noticed, supposed to be stronger. It didn't change anything for him. He still felt it all.

And, of course, the chair that had previously had Noir sat empty. Peter knew that, was expecting it, would've gotten mad beyond belief if it was occupied by him, but its emptiness still hurt Peter more than anything that was sticking into him.

 

R: Noir. God where would he even begin with that mess

He was angry, rightfully so. Noir left him, left him thinking he was dead and Peter mourned for months. There wasn't even a body to be found he had thought

And Noir had watched him get his ass kicked; watched his depression kick his ass, and the world, and alcoholism, and villains. Noir watched him fucking spiral from his little perch outside of Peter's life

Then he comes galavanting in like some dark knight supposed to rescue him. Some dark avenging angel as he was covered in blood, the red stains against his black colors and of course Peter was angry

No of course he didn't feel regret at having kicked him out. Or sadness at waking up alone. Of course he hadn't originally been thrilled when he thought he had died and finally found Noir in heaven. Seeing Noir whole, greeting him as his soul slipped from his broken body and they'd head off together

M: Noir had betrayed him, abandoned him. He was supposed to feel angry. That was definitely what he felt. Anger. Nothing else, not at all.

In a way, Peter was angry at himself, too. For falling for it. For believing Noir was dead. He should have doubted, should have done more searching. No, instead he had given up after barely a week, crawling into a bottle and hoping to never come out.

And now, he had made Noir leave. And that was a good thing. It was good he had made Noir leave, after finding out that he was alive and still here and also alive. It was the proper response to the situation, and Peter told himself what he did was right. Was correct. Was what Noir would do-

No. It wasn't what Noir would do, now, would it? Although, to be fair, it's not like Peter knew Noir very well after all...

Peter heard a gasp, and his eyes darted over to the nurse, who was staring at him, hand partially over their mouth.

"You're... awake?" They breathed out, before dropping back into a normal stance, trying to force their voice even and failing miserably. "I'll get the doctor."

With that, they were gone, too, and Peter was alone with the beeping of his broken heart, and the ragged breathing of his aching lungs.

 

R: The doctor and an intern comes back, starts discussing the facts with him. Fuck he hated listening to doctors ramble his mind always drifted away from their babble(edited)

He let's the intern list the reports

Concussion, punctured lungs that needed reinflating, they had to drain his chest of internal bleeding, a broken leg and ankle, broken arm and collarbone, shoulder that had been dislocated, on and on

The doctor admits he was surprised Peter made it. Peter snorts coz hes surprised too

Eventually he tunes out

Doesn't care about the talks about what to do, how to take care of himself

He blatantly ignores the doctor asking if he goes to AA and that he should as his liver is shutting down from alcohol abuse

But he tunes back in at the doctors final words. "We cannot release you until a secondary party comes and signs your forms."

"What? Why?" Peter nearly shouts. "I can sign my own damn release"

The doctor looks scrutinizingly at him. "Mr. Parker. I may not understand what put you into this situation. But I have done this job long enough to see someone who did not want to get out of the situation."

Peter's mouth is agape as the doctor says

"It is my job as a physician to do not harm. Releasing you in your state, under your mental condition? That would be harm. And I cannot break my oathe.",

So Peter fumes as the doctor leaves, intern following after bc why does Mr. Parker get so scary when angry?

 

M: The minute the door closed behind the doctor and intern, Peter sat up, ignoring the burst of pain that flared through his entire body. He was going to leave now. He wouldn't die from his injuries, probably. He was Spiderman, after all.

He would get up, and slip out of the window. In a minute. He just needed a moment to regain his breath and then he would leave. After a few minutes, his breath was still too short and he felt dizzy. He found himself leaning back, head resting back against the pillows, no longer having the strength to keep his body raised up.

As his breath began to return to him, he stared at the ceiling, gritting his teeth. He was furious at himself, trying to force his body to just move. But of course he couldn't, of course he was too weak to even get out of bed by himself.

He couldn't escape.

He needed someone to help him.

He needed someone to sign some papers for him, get him home, and then vanish away and leave Peter to his own devices.

MJ, she had a life now, a husband and kids, he couldn't drag her back into his life. She would never let him go off on his own, either. She cared about people too much. He thought about calling Gwen for a moment, but rejected that thought instantaneously. He couldn't make her see this.

He had to contact someone who would abandon him.

And Peter knew, then, who to call.

 

R: He flags down one of the nurses that passes by his door, asks her if she can bring him his phone and watch.

Noir is shit with phones. Absolutely awful. The buttons are weird to him and he doesn't like the GPS tracker, and he always accidentally clicks facetime so he covered the cameras with tape

So he checks his phone to see if noir said anything to the others, and then uses the watch to call the detective

Peni made the watch simple for him to use. You say where you wish to go to, what place, and then hit go. A similar principle for contacting others. Speak and they shall appear so to say

So Peter calls, leaves a message for noir. No he won't call him and talk to him. Noir can listen to a voicemail and if he doesn't respond then what the fuck ever.

 

M: “Noir, it's Peter. I need you to fill out some papers. If you deign to show up that'd be nice."

Peter knew it was rude, cruel even, but he didn't care. It wasn't like Noir cared, so why should he care that it was hurtful. He shouldn't, no, he didn't, care that Noir would hear it. After a moment, though, Peter deleted it, and sent a different one.

"Noir, it's Peter. I need you to fill out some papers. I... require... your help.”

Noir, thankfully, had remained silent on the multiverse front, so at least Peter didn't have to worry about Miles or Peni hearing about this. And if Noir kept his mouth shut, they never would.

Peter had barely placed his tech on the bedside table before it started buzzing. The caller ID said Noir, and Peter pressed ignore. He called a few more times, 6 times total, before it stopped buzzing. Peter wasn't sure whether to be relieved that it had stopped, or concerned that Noir wasn't going to show up.

As it turned out, he had little to worry about.

 

R: Peter began to doze off, head leaned back and eyes starting to shut even though he defiant tried to keep himself awake

Next thing he knows his stubborn eyes are closing, his head lolling back and he feels himself drifting to sleep

He's only brought out of his sleepy stupor at the sound of a knock, not against his room door but against the window

Brown eyes opening slightly, he saw a dark shadow slide the window open, the man ducking in through such a small space for such a large body and there noir is

He had ditched the coat, too large and made him stand out too much. He also left the hat, wearing only his sweater and his vest. The rest of his outfit is the same as usual, sans the dried blood stains. The brown red stains only detectable on his dark grey pants

Noir looks at Peter, and Peter at Noir. The man doesnt move to get closer to the bed nor head for the chair. He just stands by the window, waiting. As if this was dangerous territory and taking one wrong step will trigger landmines and Peter will be blowing him apart

They stand and sit and stare. And stare. And stare. Until finally

"Hospital papers need to be signed" peter says, pulling his gaze away and staring out the door. "I want to go home."

Home. The place where the blood pooled onto the floor and where noir had abandoned him and he slept alone and he wanted to go home but he didnt have one anymore

 

M: "Okay." Noir's voice is quiet, muted, as though Peter is about to start screaming at him. Peter would have considered it, at least, but he can still barely speak without getting tired, let alone have a screaming match over what Noir let happen.

Noir walks across the room, hugging closer to the wall, giving Peter as much room as possible. In a way, it was still too close for Peter's liking. He could still see Noir, which was more than he really wanted to deal with.

Noir gets the same goddamn doctor, who apparently decides that Noir is qualified to handle Peter and gives him the whole safety speal too, about taking care of his injuries and the AA meetings and all the rehab and... god, the man just kept talking, and Noir was standing there listening to him.

Peter wanted the doctor to hurry up and finish so Noir could sign the papers, and get him out of here. Peter didn't care about the treatments, and sure as hell Noir didn't either.

In a way, Peter wasn't sure where he would go once he actually left the hospital. His apartment was probably a crime scene, he'd have to check, and the thought of going back made his skin crawl. He didn't want to see the inside of it again, but he'd be damned if he was going to let Noir know that.

Maybe he could get Noir to drop him off at the apartment, and then go rent a place at a motel or something. It's not like anyone would notice if he moved. Or vanished.

The doctor had finished talking, finally, and now Noir was filling out the paperwork.

Peter almost screamed when Noir asked the doctor, "What does this section mean?"

Noir didn't have to pretend that hard. The doctor just needed a legal document, not a convincing story.

 

R: Finally, finally Noir finishes the paperwork. He fills out some forms saying he will be Peter's caretaker until he is well, and that he will help make sure Peter gets the help he needs.

No way in hell is Peter letting him anywhere near him once they leave this building

Peter is rolled out in a wheelchair, his body still injured though the increased healing factor is aiding somewhat. The longest process would be the healing of his broken limbs, though his cuts and bruises were already starting to knit back together or fade away.

Noir wheels him out, this strange black masked man wheeling out this obviously grumpy, infuriated mess of a man with arms crossed and eyes burning and pouting the whole way out

 

M: The intern stopped the wheelchair and went back inside. Noir reached for the handles automatically, ready to move Peter.

Peter huffed out a laugh. "C'mon, Noir, you can stop now."

"What?" Noir didn't grab the handles, but he didn't drop them back down, either. He just kinda stood there, awkwardly behind Peter so that he had to turn his head a little to see him.

"You can go. I can take it from here."

Noir frowned. "You're not in any condition to be alone right now."

"But I was before?" Peter had meant it to sound aggressive, but it just came out weak. Weak just like him, just like his broken body and how he was just so tired.

Noir looked like he wanted to run, but refused to move. "You're too injured. I told them I would take you home and make sure you're okay."

"Well, it's not like your word matters now, does it?"

Even as Peter said the words, he wanted to take them back. It was harsh, but harsh would make Noir leave so he could go home and drink and keep going as he did before, before he met Noir when it was empty and dark and alone but it didn't hurt like it did right now. So yes, Peter was going to be as cruel as he could be, and hope that it would work in making Noir drop this act and just... leave.

 

R: Of course noir didn't. He stood there, stiff as a board before grabbing the handles. "Hey, what the fuck?" Peter asks indignantly, he wants to turn and smack his hands away but he cant turn that far, the reach hurts too much. Noir just pushes and walks, doesn't say anything. Peter does though

"I said fuck off Noir, I don't want you here, get out of my fucking way" he spits as noir walks him down the block down to the district towards his apartment

"I said fuck off. God, can’t you actually listen and give a fuck about what I'm saying to you once in your fucking life?"

Noir keeps his hands on the handles, gripping tighter. No he won't say anything, it isn't his place

 

M: Noir took each sentence without faltering, but allowing each one to bury into his chest. Each one served as a reminder that Peter hated him, Peter hated him. The suffering Noir felt with these words was nothing compared to what Peter had gone through, and Noir was not so selfish as to object to them.

After all, Peter was right.

And then they were in front of Peter's apartment building, and Noir was letting go and Peter felt a moment of twisted hope that Noir was leaving, ignoring the shooting fear of being alone again, because Noir would leave now. But then Noir was propping the door open with one leg while awkwardly rolling Peter through into the lobby and he was still there.

Peter kept up the storm of cursing, all the way to the elevator and into it, ignoring the stares of other tenants as they moved by. Him, all bandaged and disheveled, cursing out a man dressed in black.

Noir got them into an empty elevator, and Peter could see Noir in the reflection of the door.

 

R: When Peter first met Noir, the man was barricaded in with walls. He wouldn't put them down, too afraid of letting people in to him, a fortress meant to keep people out and himself safe - or maybe people safe and himself in.

It was a lot back then. Noir wouldn't let people touch him, he hardly spoke much to them outside of being addressed. He didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't really anything. It made Peter so fucking infuriated because this guy was here, so clearly suffering and he just, wasn't allowed to help?

But as time went on, as they begun to have midnight talks, and Peter guided Noir through a PTSD episode while hiding in the bathtub at Aunt May's house, after movie nights and awkward flirting, and Noir helping Peter home after Peter's drunk self stumbled through the portal and into Noir's apartment. The walls they went down.

Peter was a whole new side of Noir. One that liked to dance to old timey songs but loved hearing new ones. The Noir that was too nervous to ask for a milkshake on the first date because he didn't have the money and didnt want to put Peter out but the look on his face as he drank the sweet drink was priceless. The noir that held peni when she cried and rubbed gwen's back when she was stressed and talked miles through breathing exercises after nightmares

That was the noir that Peter had fallen in love with. So how could he have just gone?

Peter sits there in his chair and he stares at Noir in the reflection of the silver doors. He's quiet, no expression shown through his mask, but Peter can feel it. His walls are...different. It's like he's barricading himself in again, but his front is open, taking the onslaught of Peter's verbal attacks

He shook his head. Whatever.

 

M: Still, seeing Noir like that, knowing that his words would have an impact... Peter fell silent, casting his gaze down from Noir's stoic face down to his own. He immediately wished he hadn't.

Their were marks on his face, stitches and lines that were slowly, well, slowly for him, anyway, healing up. But that didn't matter, not really.

What mattered was what he was showing.

He looked so tired, bags under his eyes, but that didn't matter either he never really slept much lately anyway. No, no, it was something about his face that just looked so broken, as if it was his face that had been punctured and thrown around, not his body.

Peter wanted to look away, but everywhere his eyes fell had a reflection of either himself or Noir. The two things he hated --missed-- the most.

He was relieved when the elevator dinged, and the doors finally slid open, revealing the tiled, and thankfully empty, hallway in front of them.

 

R: Noir wheels Peter out and Peter is silent. He gets to the apartment door and digs his key out of his pocket. Noir opens the door and pushes Peter in

His apartment is...clean. like as clean as it can get

He looked at the spot he had laid on the floor. The blood was scrubbed as best as it could, the only remnants being a faint discoloration on the tiles and in the caulk

The house looked relatively picked up too. The bottles of empty beer picked up, the pizza boxes thrown out, even his laundry was piled together

"Did you...pick up here?" He asked, incredulous. Noir just shrugs, putting his key down on the table where you enter the apartment, pushing peter further in.

"Maybe."

"Why?"

Noir is quiet before discarding his coat, tossing it to the couch. "There was blood."

As if it was the most explanatory thing in the world

 

R: Noir shuffles around as Peter rolls himself to the couch, easing himself out of the chair and onto the futon. He feels weird. There's tension in the air that makes the apartment feel even more stifling than the hot summer days before they got air conditioning it's thick and heavy

Noirs grabbing some water and some leftover food from the refrigerator, and Peter turns on the television to try and ignore how noir is definitely making him food. How he sets it down in front of him and goes to sit in one of the chairs rather than take his place on the couch with Peter

His old spot, Peter corrects himself

 

M: Noir sits stiffly, back ramrod straight against the chair. Peter tried to avoid looking at him, but no matter how he angled his gaze Noir was always in the corner of his vision.

Peter refused to look at the food in front of him, refused to even acknowledge it was there. It didn't matter that he was hungry, and hadn't eaten real food in however long, he couldn't give in to Noir. Couldn't admit that he needed help.

Noir didn't react to Peter's rejection, and Peter kept seeing him in everything around him. The uncomfortably too-clean room, the steaming plate of food in front of him, the edge of Noir in the corner of his vision.

In a strange twist of fate, the only thing that didn't remind him of Noir was the empty place beside him. When Noir had died, that spot was a constant reminder of Noir. Even at his drunkest, even at his lowest points, Peter had never touched that spot. Left it, like a shrine. It was the one part of the apartment he would clean, the one part he made sure was always perfect.

Now, Peter barely even noticed it, too consumed with the Noir everywhere around him, invading his space and driving away all of the Peter inside it.

 

R: Noir tried not to sigh. Of course this would be how things were, he was not foolish enough to think a plate of food and some tidying up would change it.

Still. He longed for the place next to Peter, hated how often he dreamt of being at his side rather than huddled in some run down motel trying to hide from the men that threatened to slaughter them both

But he couldn't deny Peter this space. Not when the man was so clearly uncomfortable and in need of time away from Noir. He didn't want to go, but did not want to stay and crowd Peter. He already felt suffocating enough. "If you wish I can go and pick up your medicine at the pharmacy. Give you time for yourself for an hour or so."

Peter tensed. Noir would be leaving? He wanted him to go no please dont leave and he didn't very much want him back if you leave you might not return but he did need his medicine. The pain was still rather intense, and would only get more so once the dose he was currently on faded away, and God knows he didn't need his spider senses amplifying this feeling. "Sure. Go ahead." He mumbled, trying not to sound both hopeful and fearful at the same time

 

M: Noir nodded, standing up smoothly. "Thank you, Peter." He sounded strangely relieved at Peter's acceptance, and... grateful? That couldn't possibly be it, Peter knew Noir couldn't feel that way, not about him. Not after all this time.

"I will be back in an hour." Noir hesitated for a moment, as if weighing something, before quietly adding, "Please, stay here."

Peter frowned. Noir shouldn't care if he stayed or not, shouldn't care if Peter left. A small part of him hoped, prayed, that maybe just maybe Noir still cared.

Bit no, that was stupid. Noir just didn't want Peter to die because he didn't want to... what, explain to the others what had happened to him? Have to deal with the body? Feel responsible for his death?

Oh, yeah, that was it, wasn't it. Noir didn't want to feel guilty for Peter dying, so he was going to force him to survive whether Peter wanted to or not.

Peter realized Noir was still standing there patiently, waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll stay here. Not like I can really go anywhere, anyway."

 

R: Noir nods, he takes his key and he heads out the door, locking it. But not without giving Peter one last glance before the door shuts. Noir is gone, and Peter sighs.

He sinks into the couch, and his stomach growls now loud and obnoxious. "Ugh, cmon," he complains before glancing at the plate and then the door. The smell of food is enticing, and he hates to admit that he was willing to eat it, even if noir was the one who got it for him

He weighs the pros and cons before grabbing the plate, a groan leaving him as he ate for the first time in nearly 2 and a half days. He was famished. And he realized, he was also exhausted. The warm food in his stomach and the feeling of finally being home, in a familiar environment away from tubes and machines, he felt better. Safer.

He debates resting here or heading to his bed room. He didn't know if he wanted noir to see him sleeping when he got back, didn't want him to see him vulnerable and laid out once more. "Guess that settles it then." He moves himself back into his wheelchair and wheels it to the bedroom. Getting on the couch was easy, it was low, easy to hop to. The bed? Not so much. He groaned and grunted with the effort of getting out and crawling in. Fuck he hated being so helpless, so impaired

Finally he gets into bed, not bothering to even crawl under the covers as his head hits the pillow. Hes tired Peter realizes. So tired. The silence of the room weighs down on him just like every night in it alone. He stares at the empty spot on noirs side of the bed. He closes his eyes and rolls over, and falls asleep


	3. Chapter 3

M: Noir rubbed his hand over his face as he rode the elevator back up to Peter's floor, brown bag in hand. He had picked up the medicine, and grabbed some basics while he was out - the orange Gatorade that Peter liked, a thing of crackers... things to take his time up so that Peter could have his space. Noir checked his watch for the hundredth time, noting that it had been exactly 60 minutes. He wanted to let Peter be alone as long as he needed, but the fear that Peter would be hurt kept galvanizing him to hurry up and make sure he's okay.

The doors slid open, and Noir tried to walk as slowly as possible, giving Peter those few extra moments even as he felt concern rising up inside him. He did not have the right to be anxious for him, after all.

Still, Noir was relieved when he reached the door, fishing out his- no, Peter's key- and unlocking it. When he opened the door, his heart dropped out of his chest.

Peter was gone.

 

R: Panic filled him and he was quick to come inside, locking the door behind him. Where did Peter go? Instinctively he rushed to the bathroom, flipping the lights on though there was terror in him that once he entered the room he'd see Peter... no. He wasn't there. He moved back to the living room, the window still closed and locked, the television on. He looked down, the plate of food was eaten and the drink was half gone.

Peter would...not when he did something to actually take care of himself. Especially when it involved Noir's help

Setting the supplies on the table, noir waited a moment before heading down the hall. The bedroom door was ajar

He pushed it open slightly. There, was the wheelchair beside the bed, and a figure on the bed. Peter lay curled up on his side, eyes closed and mouth slightly agape as he breathed softly, the rise and fall of his chest causing the fear in him to dissipate

Safe. Peter was safe

 

M: Noir took half a step into their bedroom, then stopped. This wasn't his space, it wasn't their. It was Peter's. Noir didn't have the right to be there. He stepped back, leaving the door slightly open so he could hear if Peter fell or woke up. He walked back to the couch, placing his acquired goods on the table and taking out the medicine.

He was about to leave it on the table, along with the drink and the snacks, when he hesitated. Peter... wasn't in good shape. He was injured, and had been borderline suicidal for the past few months. Grimacing, knowing Peter would probably hate him for it, Noir placed the medicine inside a tall cupboard, where they kept the glasses.

Peter couldn't reach it from his wheelchair.

 

M: He didn't want to wake Peter. He was too weak, he needed sleep to recover. So, Noir let him be, instead cleaning up the empty plate and then wandering around aimlessly.

It was funny, how much everything looked the same, but still so different.

 

R: The photos of them were still up, pictures of noir still hung up on the wall. He looked at them, let his fingers touch over them, tracing over Peter's smiling face in them. Pictures of them and the kids, of he and Peter, even a few candid photos peter took of noir on his phone. He and noir bickered about peter having them printed, the detective embarrassed and Peter enamored. Noir looked at it. It was him without the mask, his head in Peter's lap and asleep, glasses skewed. Peters face could be seen from the side of the picture, grinning madly and looking in love

So much has changed

As he went through the pictures, the memories, he was led back to the living room. He sat in the wooden chair, uncomfortable and stiff as he watched the television drone on. Eventually, after several long hours, noir felt himself begin to nod off

He glanced at the television, and then the hall. No sound from Peter came, no signs of him waking.

Noir got up and moved to the couch, he did so slowly and hesitantly, just like he had walked through the hospital room with Peter. It felt like the room hand landmines and one wrong step would force him to scramble out the door

Taking his spot on the couch, his old spot, he blinked. It felt...normal. it felt familiar. And for a moment, if he pretended, he could pretend Peter was sitting beside him just like in the picture.

The detective leaned back, head resting against the armrest of the couch, the fabric soft and cool. He remembered helping Peter pick it out, peter liking the color, noir liking the dark burgundy color. He let himself watch TV for a bit longer, starting to doze. But he made sure, even in his tired state, to not touch Peter's part of the couch

 

M: Noir couldn't cross that line. Not physically, not mentally. He could sit here all he wanted, pretending that he had never been gone, but it was so, so painfully clear that he had been. If he reached across, and touched that spot, it would destroy any security that Peter felt he still had.

Noir was already controlling Peter's medicine, his movements, so much of his life. He could not steal these last few places of freedom that Peter had managed to retain.

Noir promised himself the moment Peter stirred, he would move off the couch, off of the spot that used to be his, and go back to being a silent bystander in Peter's life, only interfering to keep him alive.

Noir closed his eyes, leaning his head against the back of the couch, letting his mind slip into his imagination, where he had never had to leave, and Peter was next to him, probably sneaking photos of him and trying not to laugh. It was so wonderfully painful, to pretend that Peter was still with him. It hurt to think about, but Noir deserved to suffer with his thoughts of joy.

 

R: He didn't expect to doze off. To let himself succumb to sleep when he told himself he was just resting his body, not his eyes. But it was hard, when he was back in his old spot, in his old home. For the first time in months noir was in a place unlike the dingy motels or outside on the streets or curled away on a rooftop. He was somewhere soft, and clean, and he slept

It took several hours for Peter to wake, throat parched and hurting. Hr fumbled, a hand reaching out trying to feel for a glass of water only for his sleep addled mind to remember he left his drink in the living room. "Shit," he grumbled, eyes still mostly shut. He rolled his way around the bed, his body sore but not in as intense of pain as before as he eased himself into the wheelchair. He was still sleepy, his direction a bit off

It was like when a person still basically asleep fumbled down a hallway knocking into things

His wheel hit the wall once and bumped into the table. He swore both times and got to the living room and stopped

Noir was laying on the couch - well, laying was the wrong word. More so curled up. He was at an awkward angle, head resting against the arm rest, legs on the floor he looked uncomfortable. Peter almost winced at the sight of the angle his neck was at.

He rolled a bit closer. Noir lay without his mask, glasses skewed and hair messy across his forehead. His eyes had dark bags and he had a few more scars than Peter remembered. He still slept with his mouth open slightly, breathing soft.

And Peter looked. He wasn't touching his side of the couch. The couch was not small, but not large either. It was a decent sized one, though, laying down with both of them taking up space required some finagling. But noir lay curled up on his side of the couch, the tall man hunched increasingly small. He doesn't want to touch my spot peter thought. And then he looked at the table covered in things, items he used to have noir pick up frequently from the corner store down the block.

 

M: Peter could throw a fit. Right now, if he wanted. He had the upper hand here, could force Noir to leave through sheer anger and willpower. He could get rid of Noir, right now, and be alone again. Like he wanted.

But no, it wasn't what he wanted really now, was it?

The idea of waking Noir up, when he was so clearly exhausted, made Peter feel uncomfortable, feel wrong. Despite everything, the man sleeping there was the same man he had loved for so long. And he couldn't be alone.

Peter knew that if Noir left, he would probably kill himself. Whether on purpose or on the job, Peter didn't know, but he did know that he didn't want to be alone.

He wanted Noir.

And Noir was alive, here, sleeping on the couch just like he always did - well, not exactly, since normally Noir was sprawled all over Peter, but it was still the same man, still the same couch.

The only thing that had changed, really, was Peter himself.

He was the one who had spiraled. Noir, no, Noir had vanished into the mist and reappeared as the exact same man as he had been before. Noir hadn't changed. But Peter... he had been destroyed, torn himself apart trying to find a reason to live without Noir by his side. Noir had left and come back and what... expected it all to be the same? It wasn't the same, it could never be the same again.

Peter was broken, literally and figuratively. All it would take is a moment of weakness for him to be destroyed.

So, Peter didn't wake up Noir, at least not now. Instead he wheeled himself over to his side of the couch, popped himself into his spot, and grabbed a cracker. He could kick Noir out later. It was rude to wake someone up just to yell at them

 

R: Peter sits pressed against the arm rest, leaving a gap between he and Noir. Noir lays there, sleeping, the soft sound of his breathing so familiar. If not for the pain in his body, for the way Noir's body did not touch his not sprawled out like he used to, Peter could have fooled himself into thinking things were normal

He watches the television, tries to ignore the warmth radiating off Noir, the man always running hot like a furnace. He tries to ignore the breathing, rhythmic and calming, he tries to focus on the sound of the television, of the nature documentary playing about sea animals and whales. He just snuggles back into the cushion, tries to keep his eyes off the man next to him and on the tv screen

After a little while longer, he hears Noir stir, the man beside him letting out a soft breath and Peter couldn't help himself but glance over. Watch the way Noir's eyes scrunched a little tighter closed, brows furrowing for a moment before his dark lashes fluttered, his grey pupils being revealed as he opened his eyes slowly. Peter watched as Noir curled up a bit more, face pressing into the cushion before he stretched slightly, the soft popping sound of aching joints as he shifted and breathed. This was how Peter remembered waking up with him, the way he stretched like a cat Peter had said once, laughing as he teased his boyfriend

Peter's breath hitches and he stares ahead at the television as if it is the most important thing he's ever seen, anything except the thoughts of he and Noir and what they had lost

 

M: Noir slowly opened his eyes, reveling in the soft familiarity of the couch cushion. He hadn't slept on something so comfortable in so long, it was like coming home. Noir turned his head to the side, and saw Peter sitting beside him, watching one of those nature docs that he claimed to hate but kept watching anyway.  
Wait.

Peter. He was-

Noir practically leapt to his feet, moving several steps away from Peter.  
"I-" He snapped his mouth closed, feeling his face heat up in shame.  
He hadn't meant to fall asleep, hadn't meant to stay there after Peter had woken up. All he'd wanted was to pretend it was okay for a minute and now Peter was looking away from the documentary and at him and he didn't know what to say.

Peter shrugged, a slight movement that still pulled on his bandages. He didn't look too upset, although Noir knew that Peter could absolutely destroy him if he wanted to. And, Noir acknowledged, he would let Peter do it. He deserved it.

"I don't use that side of the couch, anyway."

 

R: Noir blinked, before saying, "I'm sorry, Peter. I didn't mean to... I'll go over to the chair and-"

"Look, you need to sleep somewhere, right? And since you're sure as hell not staying in the bedroom, so the couch is fair game." Peter's mouth twitched up slightly, "And I can't really move around if you're blocking the floor."

 

R: Was...was Peter joking with him? Noir blinked a few times, not quite sure how to react or how to respond. He decides not to push it though, not to ask cause the last thing he needed was to make Peter any more annoyed with him

He sits up, pushing himself a little closer to his side of the couch, though Peter doesn't really seem to care, eyes focused on the screen. Noir steals little glances at him before looking at the Tv, trying to pretend that he didn't feel a horrible sense of awkward tension, even if Peter was acting so calm and collected

He felt like he should tell him, tell him why he left, tell him every little thought running through his mind and how he was sorry and apologize and just - it was selfish to want that right now. When Peter was so relaxed and looked so much more unburdened than he had before. He couldn't ruin that, not right now. So instead he keeps his mouth shut, his teeth grinding a bit and he stares at the documentary

 

R: Noir stares blankly at the screen, trying and failing not to watch Peter out of his peripherals. Eventually, Peter stretches. "Well, that was fun."

"Huh?" Noir focused on the screen, and found it running through credits. He hadn't even noticed it had ended.

Noir nodded silently, then checked his watch device. "It's getting late."  
"It's only..." Peter checked, too. "Oh, yeah, no, you're right. Guess I'm supposed to head off to sleep now?"

Noir hesitated, feeling his face slowly turn gray. Peter and he were talking, talking normally. It was like before, if Noir ignored the distance between them.

He doubted it would stay this casual once he laid down some of the ground rules that the doctor and given him.

"Peter, you need to have your, um, bandages changed. And, uh," Noir's face went even darker gray, "you'll need to... shower, too."

 

R: Peter stared at Noir, eyes growing wide and for a moment he almost didnt pay any heed to what Noir was saying because Noir"s face was coloring grey. Pale grey skin and a dark grey flush, Peter forgot how much he missed that

And then the reality of what Noir had just said kicked in

"I- wait what?"

The prospect of having Noir near him let alone touch him was something that had him almost bristling. He didn't want noir close, just the distance between them currently almost had him at his limits

It wasn't like it wasn't snt anything Noir hadn't seen before but "No. Nah. Nope." Peter shakes his head. "No way. I can do this on my own. I do not need you or your help." He says, pushing himself back into the wheelchair

Peter shook his head beginning to wheel himself down the hall to the bathroom. Fuck that. Noir wasn't going to come near him let alone help him with this. Not when he helped cause this. Fuck that.

But halfway down the hall, Peter had to pause and he held the aching in his side. His ribs hurt and he suddenly felt queasy. Godammit. "Alright," he yelled back, Noir sitting upright as Peter shouted. "Cmon. But no funny business, Noir. Seriously. I'll kick your ass."

 

M: Noir immediately scampered around, gathering up the bandages and equipment the doctor had given to him, and some of the extra stuff he had picked up at the store. Nicer things that would make Peter more comfortable, like red and blue bandages to make him laugh.

Noir also took down the bottle of pills, making a mental note to give a couple to Peter afterwards.

By the time Noir had gotten to the bathroom, Peter was already there, awkwardly leaning over the side of the tub from the tile, fiddling with the water temperature. He glanced to the side at Noir, and then very pointedly did-not-look at Noir, focusing solely on the suddenly difficult task of making water heat up.

"So, Mr. Doctor-Man," Peter asked, a touch sourly, "Which will it be? Shower or bath?"

"I-" Noir hesitated, "I mean, can you stand?"

Peter's eyes flickered down to his legs, then back up, before admitting, quietly, ashamedly, "No."

 

R: "Alright," Noir says, and Peter flicks the drain closed. While the water begins to fill up the tub, Peter begins to take his shirt off. Noir almost steps in to help but Peter puts a hand up to block him. The detective respects this and takes a step back. He won't crowd

 

M: As the shirt comes off, more and more of Peter's injuries are shed to Noir's sight. Bruises, yellow and already healing, spread across most of Peter's torso. Marks on his skin from the cuts the doctors had made to reach inside and fix what was broken.

His chest was speckled with red dots of blood, that there hadn't been time to get off.

Peter grunted from the exertion of removing his shirt, and one hand gripped the handrest of his wheelchair as he curled into himself slightly, trying to regain his bearing.  
He had done this. Noir had done this to Peter. Noir looked down at his own hands, and realized they were shaking.

He clenched his hands, then opened them again. Peter needed his help right now, he couldn't be off moping or getting worked up. He didn't have the right to be upset.

Peter slid off his shoes, and socks, and then he was glancing up at Noir, nervous, hands on his waistband.

 

R: Peter slid the last of his clothing off, it being a little awkward as he tried not to get up but it took some finessing

He put a towel over his crotch and he felt awkward and his cheeks were hot. He had to take some of the bandages off before he got in

His healing allowed the cuts to begin to heal, stitching together slowly but surely. Nothing like the angry slits they were just the day prior. He came to the conclusion that he'd just have to be careful with them when he got into the tub. Soap in cuts? Stung like a bitch

Peter slipped into the tub - more so, he sat on the side and had to keep himself from plopping into the water - he turned the water off and put a washcloth over himself. He looked up. Noir was still looking away. He coughed awkwardly. "You can uh, turn around now. I'm gonna probably need help getting out and getting new bandages on."

 

M: Noir slowly turned back around towards Peter, keeping his gaze off on the side of the wall.

After a moment, he let his gaze move to Peter, still keeping his eyes resolutely fixed on the upper third of Peter's chest and face.

Peter reached out, fumbling with a second washcloth and the bottle of soap. After a few moments of slippery, uncoordinated struggling, Noir offered, "Let me?"

Peter stopped, and looked up sharply at noir.  
"Sorry, forget I said anything." Crossing boundaries yet again, it seemed that was noir's new favorite pastime, now, wasn't it.

Peter sighed, and then held out the bottle. "Just remove the lid, okay? That's all."

 

R: Noir took the bottle making sure their hands did not touch. He was already breaking so many rules with Peter, touching him would break this little bit of safety that remained in between them

Peter sloshes around the water, he washes off dirt and grime and blood and there's a few areas he rubs thinking it is brown stains of mud or filth only to realize it's the yellowing brown of an old bruise or he runs the wash cloth a bit too hard over a tender cut

Noir sits and has his hands on his thighs, rubbing his hands up and down his legs just as he did in the hospital

He wants to say something desperately, but that was on skill Noir honed with his detective work. Sit down and shut up.

It's almost laughable really. Noir busts some of the biggest crime cases in his Universe yet he cant even use all those detective skills to figure out how to tell Peter he's sorry

 

R: Peter tries to reach his back but it hurts and he can't and he thinks about just saying fuck it and getting out. But then that would mean having to repeat this process again and sooner. Shit.

"Noir, gimme a hand," Peter says and the detective startles out of his little trance

Peter turns around and holds out the wash cloth. "Back." He simply says and leans forward, his back exposes and his knees pulled up to his chest. "Oh, ya of course." Noir says taking the cloth and getting to his knees.

He has no small sense of trepidation. He doesnt want to touch Peter. He does but he doesn't. He knows this is what pete takes for but it still felt dangerous and unsafe. Still, he took a breath, trying to keep his hand from shaking as he pressed the cloth to Peter's back and began running it in circles across pale mottled skin

Peter closes his eyes and tries not to sigh. He wrists his arms on his knees, his chin on top of his arms as he leans forward and let's Noir wash. It's only been 2 days (well, 2 and a half, as it was currently 3:45 in the morning but who cares about technicalities?) And Peter was obviously still angry. But he was also filled with this stupid sense of regret that he shouldn't have. That should all be Noir

Noir faked his fucking death, he watched Peter hurt and cry and get beaten, watched him sit in his own blood and sick, and when he finally, finally was about to get what he wanted - did he ever truly want to die? - Noir swoops in and acts like a knight in black armor and Peter the damsel as if he wasn't the one who put him in distress

Peter's blunt nails dig into his arm as he closes his eyes tight. It was all Noir's fault so why did he still worry that the man was uncomfortable, that something happened beyond just them, that Noir was scared, that things were not okay and Noir was trying and he was the one being a pain in the ass?

Because even this kind of fuck up doesn't truly erase almost 5 years of love he tells himself.

 

M: Noir runs the cloth over, skipping around the slowly-but-surely-healing wounds, trying to be as gentle as possible. Peter's skin, where it wasn't a blooming shade of angry, was pale white.

After all, Peter hadn't been outside unless he was Spider-Man, so it wasn't like he had seen the sun in a long time.

Peter closed his eyes. Like this, he couldn't help but feel pathetic. His fragile body, his weakness. The nails we was digging into his arm weren't even strong enough to twinge.

Peter hated Noir. Hated him in a way that was so close to love that it yanked on his heart, twisting it around Noir and pinning it in place with barbed wire.

He wanted to hurt Noir. He wanted to make him feel miserable.  
But he couldn't. Because as much as he -loved- hated Noir, the thought of hurting him made him feel sick.

 

R: Noir sat there and washed Peter's back and cupped water to let it run down his back and wash the suds off. He rings the cloth out and sets it onto the side of the tub and Peter waits til he moves away to pull the plug. He grabs the towel close by, and wraps it around his shoulders.

He hates that he needs more of Noir’s help especially with the bandages but he just he can't and it's late and now hes so tired

"Bandages," he says, and Noir nods. Peter feels some vaximily of guilt for treating Noir like a stupid dog, one word commands. But noir understands. He knows this side of Peter, used to see it when peter would be bedridden with the flu and that one really bad case of bronchitis. Peter would be snappy and mean and Noir just nodded along as if to say "yes dear"

That's the problem Peter realizes with trying to hate someone you love/d so much. Is there's too many memories. Especially for the two of them

 

M: Noir places the bandages and ointment on the side of the tub. He uncapped the lid, but hesitated. He seemed to have been doing a lot of that, lately. Hesitating constantly, never wanting to make Peter feel any more violated than he already was.

"Is it okay if I touch you?"

The words were spoken softly, but sounded so incredibly loaded, full of ammo and ready to be fired at a moment's notice

"Go for it."

Peter's voice was quiet, but just as stubborn as ever.

Noir poured some of the antibiotic into his hands, before reaching out and touching Peter's back, right beneath his collarbone, coating across a long, red cut that sliced across his shoulder blade.

 

M: As Noir worked his way down, Peter curled in more and more into himself, wrapping his arms around and ducking his head down, shoulders hunching up towards his ears.

He wanted Noir to stop touching him, to back off and give more space. But he didn't want to make Noir let to, either.

Noir noticed the way Peter's muscles were tensing under his fingers, and asked, "do you want me to stop, Peter?"  
The words were spoken so gently, so sweetly. It filled Peter with some mix of shame and annoyance.

But mostly shame.

" Just stop talking and get it over with, yeah?"

It came out shaky, afraid. Noir didn't have to stop, didn't have to listen to Peter. But maybe he would listen, would get upset, and leave Peter alone again.

The idea of being left here alone, wounds sluggishly bleeding in a red-stained tub, filled Peter with even more anxiety and fear and suddenly Noir was too close and he couldn't breathe and he was coughing and couldn't stop oh god what was happening make it stop

 

R: "Hey, hey, shhh," Noir was there in a moment. He didn't touch, he knew Peter hated it when he touched him when he was having an anxiety attack. Noir grasped onto touch as an anchor, holding it for dear life as he gulped the watery air like a fish.

Peter, however, hated it. It made him scream and ache and he would get so overloaded and Noir was shushing him softly. Just like Peter taught him to do five years ago. Just be quiet, be present but don't crowd

Noir is sitting by his side, hand on the wheelchair and Peter is gulping for air and bent over shaking like a leaf, and Noir is just quiet as he speaks. "It's aces, Petey, just Jake. You're gonna be okay. Just gimme an ol deep breath and you'll be right as rain."

Peter wants to tell him to shut up, that he's not helping. But then he could kick himself, yell because he forgot how much Noir's stupid 30s slang made him relax. How much the detectives voice made him calm. How much Noir drove away the fear

He sat there and he shook and he coughed and he sucked in air and Noir just kept murmuring soft praises and "atta boy" as Peter did. He clutched at his arms and the arm rests. He breathed harshly and shallow and finally, finally as Noir coaxed him into taking a few last deep breaths. Peter calmed

 

M: Peter sucked in another breath, letting it out in a shaky exhale.  
"I'm fine." He said, answering Noir's unasked question. He wouldn't look Noir in the eye, couldn't, really. Noir knew the right thing to do every time. It didn't matter that he had done so much, had been gone for so long, hand done all that he had done. That didn't change that noir knew him. Knew where to give space, knew how to calm him down and get him back. It also meant he knew where to push. And Noir had pushed him so far past the breaking point by leaving.

"I just about finished. We can skip the last couple, do them later, if you want."

Yeah, Noir always knew.

Peter felt ridiculously grateful, like Noir had granted him something. Peter could have just asked Noir to stop, and he would have. But Noir asking, Noir knowing, what Peter needed... That felt so much more powerful, so much more meaningful.

"Yeah. Not like I really need it anyway, right?" Peter said jokingly, voice uncomfortably tight.

" We just need to bandage it up, and then you can have some pain medicine and get some sleep, okay?"

 

R: Peter gives a stiff nod and Noir wastes no time getting to work. Peter can dress himself he's sure, he just wants to help him with this. His eyes are still a bit glossy and Noir knows the power of a good cry in bed will help a lot of Pete's pent up emotions

Speaking of, Noir realizes, he doesnt think Peter's been able to cry yet. To be upset. Sure he was out for an hour but still. Peter had been exhausted. He would have been surprised if the man had stayed awake longer than ten minutes after he had left

Noir wraps the bandages around Peter's arm and around his ribs, peter leaning forward slightly and Noir makes a mental note to put something down on the wheelchair for further use so Pete's skin doesn't stick

Tying the last knot he sits back on his heels and surveys his handiwork. He was no doctor, but he was pretty damn good at wrapping someone up  the thought made him a little sick. "I'll bring you to your room and grab you some meds. I'll sleep out out in the couch so just holler if you need me." He says as he wheels Peter to his room

 

M: Peter nodded. Now that the bandages were all back on, he could feel the press of them against his injuries. Exactly as tight as they were supposed to be, actually.

Peter suddenly wondered, as he was wheeled past the couch, if noir had been practicing. If Noir had been injured off doing whatever the hell he had been doing. If he had been bleeding where he couldn't reach, and had to just deal with it. Peter felt suddenly, immensely concerned for Noir. Had he been hurt?  
Wait. Why did Peter care, again? He shouldn't. But the idea of Noir hurting, alone filled him with fear and and sent his heart rate spiking up. Even though it was, ironically, exactly what Noir had done to him.

Noir stopped at the edge of the bedroom threshold, letting go of the wheelchair. "I will get the medicine." He said before vanishing. Not even so much as the toe of his boot crossed over the door frame.

Peter thought about how Noir had been sleeping on the couch, and winced. It was terribly uncomfortable. But the idea of Noir being in here in -their old- his room, made him anxious. He didn't want noir to be uncomfortable, all curled over, but he did not, under any circumstances, want to let noir inside this last sacred space.

 

R: By the time Noir returns, Peter is still in the same spot where he left him. He didn't even move to grab his clothes from the dresser or to move closer to the bed.

"Peter?" He asks, concerned

Peter just turns his head slow, staring at Noir with wide and conflicted brown eyes and Noir has to stop himself from sucking in a breath. He can see a battle raging in Peter's eyes and he's worried it's one that's not too kind. "Peter?" He asks again. "Ptsd episode?"

Peter just shakes his head, is quiet for a few moments before looking down at his arms and then back at Noir. "Why'd you leave?"

And there it was. The million dollar question


	4. Chapter 4

M: Noir was silent, staring at Peter's face. Then, he sat down on the floor, still behind that goddamn invisible line, facing Peter. He was now beneath Peter, literally placing himself under him.  
Peter shuffled his chair around slightly to face Noir head on.

"Noir? Why did you-" Peter's voice cut out, and he cleared his suddenly too thick throat before continuing, "why did you leave me?" And he can feel tears coming on and he just didn't have the strength to hold them back anymore.

Noir took a steadying breath, wringing his fingers over one another, an old habit that popped up whenever he was nervous.

"It's... it's a long story." Noir began, "I had been tracking an undercover organization, I thought they worked for green goblin. But, well, it went so much deeper than that. I was poking a nest thinking it was full of bees, but it was full of wasps."

"Someone, I don't know who, managed to figure out I was watching them. It didn't take them long to figure out my nests, after that. They were planning to take me out, after they had... tortured you in front of me. I," noir looked up at Peter's face, desperate. "I couldn't let then hurt you. So I had to vanish. I had to keep you safe."

 

R: "Torture?" He asks, voice a quiver. Noir had been going undercover and they were going to retaliate with torture? Break him down in front of Noir? Make him watch as they made him bleed and scream and cry and - he shivered. Blood. Always too much blood

After a moment he shakes his head. "But you didn't have to go like you did. Didn't have to make everyone, make me think you were dead!" He sounds on the tinge of hysterics

"You left me and I mourned you! I mourned you!" He says, anger now taking over in his voice as he wheels over and jabs Noir in the chest with his finger. Noir let's him

"I cried so fucking much. Thought my world fucking ended. I had lost my best friend, the love of my goddamn life! Do you get this, Noir? You were my second chance at love and happiness after MJ, I thought I had something with you! I thought "hey, this is someone I'd like to spend the rest of my life with" only to find your side of the bed empty and you never came home and I didnt even know if there was a body to bury!" He sobs, angry and sad

Noir just sits there as Peter screams and cries and he wants so badly to hold him, needs to hold him, hut he’s already been selfish enough

 

R: Peter is bent over as he cries, always an angry crier MJ had told him

He grabs at his arms and sobs, his face looking red and splotchy and his wails were everything except beautiful. And Noir sits.

"I'm sorry Peter...I'm so sorry." He says though there's not enough sorry's in the world to make up for this kind of hurt

"I know it was stupid. To think that if you didn't know, they wouldn't hurt you. But I just... Peter I thought about you every day. Every goddamn minute. I tried so hard to stay away. Keep you safe from me but just. I couldn't."

 

M: "Do you know how I found out you were dead, Noir? Do you?"  
Noir didn't answer.  
"I found out when I tracked down your phone, and found it shot to pieces and dripping in old blood. You didn't use guns, anymore. Or at least, I thought you didn't."

"You wanted to protect me? You're the one who hurt me the most, Noir. Thinking you were dead was worse than any-" Peter gestured at his legs, "physical pain they could have ever done to me."

Noir shook his head. "You're alive, Peter. That's all I could do for you. I wanted to vanish, to never see you again, but I had to stay to make sure they didn't come after you anyway. See if they fell for it. See if they would leave you alone."

"If I had told you I was going to vanish, you would have never let me." Noir's voice was shaky, "and it is better to have you alive, hating me, than dead loving me."

 

R: "But I almost did die loving you!!" Peter screams and it's like everything stopped. Like the world outside stopped and all Noir can hear is the harsh breathing of Peter panting and body shaking

"Do you know how much I wanted to fucking die without you? How much I wanted to know where you went and I wanted to see you there! I thought about it when I went to bed, when I woke up, when I did fucking anything Noir!"

"If not for the kids and not for me being a coward I would have! I would have gone to try and find you and see you on the other side. Don't you fuckign get it no matter what I was going to be dead because I can't stop loving you! And it's killing me!"

Tears are pouring down Peter's cheeks and he's trembling in his wheelchair and all of a sudden, he feels every bit of bone crushing loneliness he had felt during those months along all crash down on him at once

"I drank because I needed to feel or not feel, I took too many pain pills, I started losing fights, started losing weight, starting losing . I was losing me, Noir, losing myself," Peter breaths, and it's the first time he's ever said it aloud. "When you died a piece of me died too and the rest of me was just waiting to catch up."

 

M: Noir's gaze meets Peter's eyes, unwilling or unable to look away from whatever he saw there. A broken man, that he had splintered into pieces, stared back at him.  
"I wanted to die, Noir. I wanted-" Peter's voice is choking out, and he's gasping out words between gasping sobs. And Noir is still just sitting there, two feet away, but he looks broken, too.

Peter falls silent, unable to speak more without running out of air, and Noir speaks. His voice is rough and pitched, the way it always is before he cries. "Peter, I-" he snapped his mouth closed, digging his teeth into his tongue.

This wasn't about him. This was about Peter. Everything noir did, every decision he had ever made as of 5 years ago, had been about loving Peter, about protecting Peter.  
He had hung up his guns for Peter, because he knew he didn't like them, even if he never asked him to. He had made countless decisions based on keeping Peter safe, while doing the right thing. Now, Noir had hurt Peter to keep him safe, but nearly killed him anyway.

But what he had done hadn't been wrong. He knew, he knew that if he hadn't played the game, they would have killed them both.  
But Peter had had a right to know the game was happening, maybe. Had he?

 

R: Even though he had meant Peter no harm, intent doesn't matter, it was the impact that did. He hadn't meant to leave Peter choking under water, weighed down with the weight of it all, but he did, and now Peter was scared of being thrust under again. 

He sat there quietly as Peter shook and sobbed, and it was like watching a man only vaguely knew. That was Noir's issue, wasn't it? He thought he knew Peter, all of Peter,  thought with his oh so smart detective skills Peter would get over him. That Noir would be just a memory within the first two months. But two months led to four which led to seven, then nine, and now this. Peter had spiralled in a way that Noir never though he could - at least not again.

It was Noir's fault for assuming he knew the man in front of him. For doubting his heart, his commitment. "I'm so sorry." Peter wiped at red and teary eyes, and he looks to Noir. He looks sad and lost and he looks younger than Noir is, and Noir forgets Peter's been doing this longer than he has at a younger age. He's lost just as much. And now hes lost his home. Peter was just a kid trying to play a man's role in a war that he should never have been forced into

"Did they get you?" Peter finally asks. His voice small and chromed and frightened. "Did they get you out there?"

 

M: Noir didn't respond right away, glancing away from Peter's eyes for a moment before flicking back.  
"They didn't catch me."  
"That's not what I asked." Peter retorted, leaning forwards as far as he could manage. Invading Noir's space --offering physical closeness-- demanding --begging-- for an answer. Noir grimaced. "There were some close calls, I got hit a few times, but they never found out it was me. You were never in danger of that."

Noir must have misunderstood the question, thinking Peter was worried about them coming after him, worrying about identifies. No, no, that didn't matter, what mattered was that Noir had said he'd been hit which meant he had been hurt and Peter needed to know.

"What happened to you?" Peter's voice was dropping, concern creeping in over his anger if only or these few moments.  
"It doesn't matter. I'm fine. You are the priority, here."

Peter had been so wrapped up in mourning, so cloaked in his own misery, he had forgotten that he had even existed at all.  
To be called a priority... that felt wrong. Especially coming from Noir, the man who Peter --loves-- loved. 

 

R: "Benjamin, please." Peter says, and Noir's breath catches

Benjamin was their go to when Noir wasn't enough. When noir couldn't put down the mask and gun for the day, too wrapped up in his own head with all that was going on. Peter would come up to him as Noir worked late hours in front of theory boards, coffee cups and cigarettes scattered around in his attempts to stay awake in his mania. Peter would come up, would slip his glasses off and take his hand. "Come to bed Benjamin."

Noir  looks away suddenly feeling vulnerable like an ant underneath a microscope. "I uh," he licks at cracked lips and fidgeted nervously. He tugged at the skin around his wrists, a habit he picked up after being so used to wearing his gloves, his spider suit was a part of him

Peter rolled forward slightly, pushing himself out of the chair and onto the floor. They sat together. And Noir started to talk

 

M: "It didn't matter that I had vanished, you know? They weren't coming after you at the time but they were still a threat. I, uh, went after them. It's harder for them to track you if you don't exist, right?"

Noir tried to laugh, but the words came out hard and it sounded more like a plea

They weren't touching, Peter was a few inches away. Noir closed his eyes, and could almost feel the heat coming from his body. Almost.

"They figured out someone was after them, but they knew I was dead and that you were... struggling." Noir was getting tense. His fiddling got more pronounced. "I snuck into their base, after too many months, took out their top guns, destroyed what I could. But I had never really bothered to think of an escape plan, 'cause I knew I would have had to kill every person in a two mile radius. But i figured I would fight my way out, because I, well," noir's picking at his skin was starting to draw black. "I wanted to be able to come home, to you. But I knew that was impossible. So I just... tried to survive. Got shot... god, what was it, 17 times? One of them had a machine gun and just... kept shooting." Noir's voice was dropping quieter and quieter. "They used so many bullets to kill me."

 

R: "Seventeen?" Peter asks, incredulous. He looks at Noir like he's shocked he's still here, as if he doesn't believe under the coat and the sweater he's in one piece. His hand shakes and he grabs at Noir’s jacket, tries peeling it off

"Peter," Noir says softly

Peter shakes his head, shaking as he tugs at Noir's lapel and Noir wont let him take it off. "Peter, stop," he hushes, peter shaking his head and shaking and pulling. "Seventeen," he says softly, repeating it and he's grabbing Noir and Noir wants so hard to grab his wrists, to lift them from his jacket so he wouldn't have to see. But he can't touch Peter. Hasn't been given permission. So Peter tugs and pulls Noir’s jacket down, and Noir grabs at the bottom of his sweater, keeps Peter from yanking the bottom of his sweater up. 

"I need," Peter says, voice a ghost, a whimper. "I need to see Noir"   
"Why?"

Peter shakes and looks at him "I have to make sure you're whole"

 

M: Noir complies. He didn't have a choice, not really, not after seeing the way Peter's face was crumbling and his hands were getting so unsteady. He could have refused, but he knew that if he did, the last bit of Peter that remained would be crushed into the ground.

Noir lets Peter pull up his jacket, takes off the rest of it when Peter reached down to his shirt.  
If Peter wanted to see it, he had the right to see it all. When Peter sees Noir's pale gray skin, he starts trembling, hard, hands landing on Noir's scarred chest.  
"I'm alive, Peter." Noir said, almost reaching out to touch Peter's hands but stopping before contact was made. He wasn't allowed to touch him.

Noir had always had his fair share of scars. Long lines and the occasional pocketed scar were scattered across his body. But this... Peter didn't even know what to think.

Perfectly circular holes, marked in a perfect, if slightly diagonal, line across noir's body. Each one looking the exact same as the last. Peter counted them. 12 like that. There were 5 more, scattered around, and they were ragged and sliced at.

"Those ones, the guns didn't have enough power. Instead of going through, they got stuck and I had to....remove them." Noir explained. "See? I'm okay, I'm alive. I'm fine."

"But are you whole? Are you you?"

 

R: "I don't know what you mean Peter,"   
"Don't lie to me." He says, and Noir bites his tongue. "You've lied to me too much, you have to tell me the truth right now, Benjamin."   
Noir looked down

He let his fingertips trace the sunken scars, the holes across his skin, let his rough fingertips run across the diagonal line that tore through his body, that had had him bleeding on the ground with nothing but grit and spite to get himself up

He takes a breath and sighs. "When I got shot, I thought I was a goner. They filled me with daylight and I could see a flash of an image, myself in a meat wagon, on the slab in a hospital. Nameless John doe. I should have been dead but I just...I didn't die. And I had to get up. And it hurt. Fuck Petey, it hurt." Noir says, and Peter knows it did. Can feel it in his bones.

He looks back down at the five pot shots marred around his body

"This guy helped me. Dunno his name but just dragged me into his place. I was scared he was one of them but I couldn't fight back. He pressed bandages to my wounds and tried stitching me backup. Was bleeding everywhere, he was a good man to try I musta looked like a lost cause. We weren't able to get the ones that tore in and didn't have an exit out. We had to focus on the bleeders, the ones that were flowing too freely. The five were the least of our worries."

 

R: As he spoke, Peter saw the way his eyes fogged up a little behind his glasses, the way he got glassy and lost a bit and he didn't know what to do. If to touch

"We got me patched up as well as could be but they just. They tried tracking me Peter. And that guy , that real swell guy." Noir swallows and closes his eyes, turns his head away. "Well...i grabbed what I could from the place when I made my getaway. Got some medical supplies and some rations and I was scrammin. The trigger men were after me and I had to get goin. I hid on a rooftop so I'd have a vantage point and I dug the five bullets out using a pocket knife. It's why the scars are long." He explained. "I think my bloods still caked on the wall of that building." He laughs. And Peter grabs his hand

 

R: Noir blinks, staring down at their hands for a moment, eyes unfocused. He immediately pulled his hand away from Peter's grip.  
"I'm not allowed to touch you." Noir said automatically, "You told me not to touch-"  
Peter reached out again, but Noir pulled away. He could see the flash of misery as Noir forced himself not to reach out and grab Peter's hand tight.  
"Oh, Benjamin, it's okay. You can touch."  
"I- I hurt- I can't-" Noir was stammering over his words. Noir always did that, always seemed to forget how to speak when he felt unbalanced.

Noir would always get real quiet, real touchy. Sometimes, Peter would be sitting at home and Noir would come back like this. He would stammer out a few unintelligible words, then just go to their bedroom, or sit on the couch, or, occasionally just collapse onto the carpet entirely. And when Peter touched him then, a hand in his own, rubbing circles,  or in his hair, running through over and over, would make him absolutely melt into Peter's arms. Peter reached out again, and this time ignored Noir's hand, and reached straight for his face, gently cupping it and making Noir's eyes focus on his.  
"You can touch, Benjamin. You can touch."

Noir crumpled, hands reaching up lightning quick to grab Peter's hands in his own, bringing them down and curling his body over them, holding them close to his chest. Noir was shaking, on the brink of tears but he didn't deserve to cry in front of Peter.

 

R: For a moment Peter is dragged out of his own head as he watches Noir hold his hands and shake, clutching them like a lifeline. Peter is dragged from his own head out of his resentment and his anger and his frustration and he sits there and he wonders, when was the last time he had touched Noir? Noir had disappeared almost a year ago, gone without a trace. The last time he remembered holding him, feeling Noir's skin was when Noir had pressed a kiss to his forehead the night that he had left, a soft "night Peter, be home in the morning." Peter hadn't even rolled over to acknowledge it, just letting out a small huff as he fell back asleep

He sits and watches Noir hold him and try not to cry, torso bared to the world and covered with scars and cuts, things that no man should have to go through, let alone a man so good.

Noir always had gotten distant after being hurt. It was a coping mechanism Peter had realized, trying to separate himself from others as if being near them would spread the hurt to them, he would sit and dissociate, retreat into his own little world. It had taken a lot of coaxing from Peter to convince him that it was okay to need a touch when he was hurt or upset. Noir was so vulnerable to tenderness, it made Peter's heart ache. And when Noir had finally come to Peter and put his head in his boyfriend's lap, a few hot tears that remained unacknowledged dripping onto Peter's pant leg, he didn't say anything about it. Simply  started to stroke his hair and let Noir shake it out

Noir had been hurt, and he had been hurt bad. He had almost died, and the realization catches in Peter's throat remembering how he had asked if Noir was dead. If they were in heaven. It almost could have come true, he almost could have died and met Noir in the beyond

Peter in all his self loathing and anger and mourning had at least some people by his side. Even if he had denied and yelled and isolated himself from the other spiders, Miles and Gwen still texted him frequently, Peni would send him little animations of what looked like he and her hugging, him smiling, Porker even invited him to a few of his stand up gigs. Peter had denied them all, wanting to simply sit and hide away in his anger and his sadness

 

R: But Noir had no one out there. Didn't have the chance to have someone comfort him like Peter had. He had gone out into the world with nothing, absolutely nobody with the idea that he may not come back and if he didn't Peter would be better off than being killed for him. Noir had left with the idea that if he died it would be worth it if he could save Peter. And he had been shot, 17 fucking times and nearly died on the couch of some good Samaritan's home only to watch him die just like Peter would have died for being affiliated with Noir. And Noir had to hide, and sleep in the streets, and on roofs, and in motels. He had to dig his own bullet wounds out, and he had to bleed across the pavement while he huddled in his jacket trying to sleep with one eye open

And Noir tried not to cry, and Peter felt like he was seeing the Noir he had seen 6 years ago who was having an attack while hiding in the bathtub of Aunt May's house rambling about colors, and red, and red, and guns, and uncle Ben, and red, so much red. And Peter did now what he had done then, he moved forward, wrapped his arms around him and pressed their foreheads together. And Noir was accumulated to pain, but tenderness, he was weak to. And he cried

 

M: If Peter was an ugly crier, all loud and wailing and gasping, Noir was near silent. His entire body shaking like a leaf, shoulders always rising to try to hid his face away. His breathing quiet, choking, almost nonexistent, and even his tears themselves never seemed to make any noise at all.  
Noir had learned how to cry in silence a long time ago.

Noir didn't revel in the warmth of Peter's body, no, nothing so small as that. He tried to drown himself in Peter's arms, crush himself into the smallest space imaginable to feel his touch, cover every inch of himself with Peter because he knew that once this moment ended he may never have it again.

So Noir cried. He cried and shook and tried to focus on Peter's arms around him because if he let go, Noir knew he would fall into pieces. His mouth was moving silently, a plea for Peter to not let go, not let go, but of course no sound came out because Noir never made sounds when he was upset because then they would find you and hurt you and never let them know you're hurt.

And Peter was just holding him, and Noir was shaking so hard he couldn't tell if he was even still breathing anymore, or just choking on empty air and unspoken words, begging for Peter to not let go.

It didn't matter that Noir didn't say anything, Peter knew anyway. He always knew what Noir needed. And right now, Noir needed to be touched, needed to feel, needed to know that Peter was alive and he was here and he wasn't letting go.

 

R: Peter held Noir close as the detective cried, silent tears sliding down his cheeks and dripping onto their laps. Peter sighed softly, pulling him closer and his hands went to Noir's dark hair, running fingers through the matted mess and he wonders the last time Noir was able to have a shower. To sleep in an actual bed, in an actual room. When the last time he truly slept, truly felt safe, truly felt anything behind this emotional wall he had slammed up

The feel of fingers in his hair had him choking on air and his eyes were closed and he wanted to beg aloud to whatever god, goddess, spider deity, anything, that this could last just a few minutes longer. Noir was never a religious man, but he felt it in that moment

Peter held him as Noir trembled in his hold, and it felt so viscerally familiar to Peter. The warmth of him pressed close, the way he curled up into him, the way that every couple shaking breaths he would suck a breath in as if trying to steady himself. How Noir's hands clenched tight, trying to keep himself afloat and drown himself at the same time

"Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin," Peter mumbled softly, forehead against his and eyes closed. He shook his head gently, one hand in his hair, the other on his wet cheek thumbing away tears. "Shh, it's okay Ben, it's okay,"

 

R: "It isn't okay," Noir said softly, voice a tremble, a poor rendition of how he normally sounded. He was always so put together, so strong. It was so hollow now, so unsure. "I hurt you. Peter, I almost got you killed and I - I, I tried oh god, Peter. Please, I'm sorry I tried so hard to keep you safe and I hurt you and you shouldn't even forgive me I'm sorry I'm sorry I almost killed you," and he's stuttering and he's shaking and peter has him tighter

"Stop that," he says, and Noir's mouth clamps shut because he hurt Peter and he needs to listen to Peter. And Peter sighs, and shushes him, rubbing his cheek and giving a soft apology. Nine months alone and Noir was thrusted back into the past, being that man Peter had met who put the weight of the world on his back and too lost in his head. "I don't want you saying that. Ya, you messed up, but so did I. Ben, it was a mistake. And it's gonna take fixing, but we can do it. We can worry about the anger and that stuff later, okay?"

"But, Peter I - "

"Benjamin," Peter looks him in the face, both of them with watering eyes, and messy hair and fear and nostalgia and hope and trepidation on both of their faces, in their eyes. "Ben, please come home. Okay? Just come home."

 

M: "Do I... have a home?" Noir choked out, somehow managing to squeeze even closer to Peter than before, curling up so tightly against Peter it must have hurt.  
Peter could feel his heart ache in his chest, at the question that was more of a desperate plea, asking, begging, to be let in.

"Yes, Ben. You're home." Peter replied, curling his arms around so that they covered more of Noir's skin, "You're home."

Noir choked out a sob, hands reaching up from where they were digging into his legs to try to keep him from touching Peter, and curling up to touch Peter's chest and face and Noir just kept mouthing words that Peter didn't read but didn't have to. Noir was thanking him. Thanking him for letting him back into his own home.

Peter wanted to stop him, wanted to have Noir understand that it wasn't a gift from him, but he knew that Noir wasn't in a state to recognize it. So instead, he just kept rubbing circles in Noir's matted hair, kept repeating, "You're home" over and over and over again as Noir shook harder and mouthed thank yous that Peter knew he did not deserve.

 

R: Ugh, emotionally messy sad boys. they gotta go to couples therapy eventually coz goddamn

 

M: oof yeah probably

 

R: did we do it? Did we slay the beast? 

 

M: I feel good with it

 

R: I do too


End file.
